


Snowed Inn

by a_gay_poster



Category: Naruto
Genre: First Time, M/M, Outdoor Sex, PWP, Prompt Fill, Sharing Body Heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:14:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26443987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster
Summary: Gaara and Lee get trapped on a mountainside during a blizzard. They have to huddle together for warmth. What happens next can probably be predicted.
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee
Comments: 24
Kudos: 233





	Snowed Inn

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a smut prompt fill on Tumblr. The prompt was: “I love the way your face lights up when someone says its might be dangerous’. (I am glad we are friends)” / “If loud, public sex is wrong, then being wrong is wicked hot. (Right and wrong are just guidelines to hotter sex.)” / Optional Kink: Exhibitionism or Outdoor Sex
> 
> Minor worldbuilding note, this is slightly canon-divergent insofar as Neji is alive post-war.

Gaara shivers. 

Wind howls wickedly outside the crevice he’s wedged into, blowing a flurry of thick snow past the opening. He tries to give himself space by leaning as far back against the wall behind him as he can, which, admittedly, isn’t far, because the crack in the rock wall is barely a meter wide, and most of that space is already filled. 

He rubs a cold-numbed hand over his face. His nose is starting to lose feeling.

He sighs. 

_Sledding._ What an asinine idea. 

He wouldn’t have even agreed to go with the rest of the Five Kage and their guards in normal circumstances, much preferring to spend the time between meetings sitting by the fireplace in the Raikage Tower’s main hall, ideally with a cup of hot tea. Of course, _normal_ circumstances didn’t usually include Rock Lee fisting both hands in front of his chest and crying out, “That sounds amazing!” right next to Gaara’s ear. 

It wasn’t typical for Lee’s team to be assigned to the Hokage’s guard duty, but Gaara wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It _should_ have been typical, if Naruto was at all responsive to any of Gaara’s lectures about how to select the ideal complementary guard based on your own skills and abilities. But unfortunately, last time that conversation had ended with Naruto rubbing the back of his neck and saying, “Well, geez, Gaara, if you like the guy that much, why don’t you just hire him yourself?” 

It was most likely that the choice to use Team Gai in lieu of any of Naruto’s preferred guard had something to do with the fact that all of Konoha’s jounin kunoichi (and half the male jounin besides) were off duty on parental leave at the moment. That was another talk that Gaara needed to have with Naruto: the importance of establishing boundaries with your subordinates and learning how to say no. 

It was also a conversation to be had with Suna’s own jounin division. Baby fever could be contagious, and Gaara didn’t want anyone getting ideas. Just because Suna emulated Konoha in some things, did not mean they would emulate Konoha in all things, and particularly not in _this_ thing. Gaara would start putting contraceptive herbs in teacups at the jounin debriefings if he had to. 

In any case, the end result was that the Raikage’s boisterous younger brother—who wasn’t even invited to the talks, mind you, but had just been standing in the hallway outside the meeting room, rapping loudly about how he was waiting for Naruto to join him for “bonding as jinchuuriki, and no that’s nothing freaky”—suggested they take the afternoon away from the talks to go sledding. After all, the Land of Lightning was a mountainous country and—much to Gaara’s dismay—the entire Cloud Village was covered in snow this time of year. There was a brief and quickly stifled kerfuffle over a blizzard warning, which Gaara had no way to gauge the seriousness of. In Suna, a sandstorm warning could signal anything from a squall to a full-blown derecho. It could mean you just needed to wear an extra layer of sand-proofing gear, or it could mean that you needed to hunker down indoors for the foreseeable future with all the doors and windows blocked. 

And of course, Lee’s response to this suggestion was to stare around the room with sparkling eyes, practically _vibrating_ out of his skin, and start gushing about sledding and how much fun it was and, “Have you ever been sledding before, Gaara-kun? I know you do not get any snow in Suna! Can you sled on sand dunes?” (Gaara hadn’t, and if you _could_ sled on sand dunes, Gaara would never have permitted it. That was a surefire ticket to a sand-slide.)

So when the group broke off into two parties, one staying in the lobby and the other going up the mountain, Gaara followed the latter group. Much to Kankuro’s shock and dismay. 

“What?” he squawked, visions of hot toddies almost visibly dancing over his head. “You don’t need me to come with you, right?” 

Gaara looked up the hall, where Lee was already bounding ahead, cloak flapping at his heels and the dangling bobbles on the ear flaps of his pom-pom hat swinging. 

“I’ll be fine,” Gaara said. 

Kankuro tracked the direction of his gaze and just gave him a skeptical, considering look and a nod. 

Standing on the crest of the mountain’s summit, Gaara started to have second thoughts. 

The plunge to the bottom of what Killer B had called ‘The Baby Hill’ was precipitous. Thick grey clouds crackling with lightning swirled so heavily that the base of the mountain could not even be seen. Rocky crags jutted out through the white slush in every direction. 

“That looks dangerous,” Gaara commented, arms crossed over his chest. The miserable cold had already begun to sneak through this jacket and cloak. 

“Don’t worry, Gaara-kun!” Lee chirped, seated at the head of an offensively bright-red sled, steering rope clenched in his fists. “If you’re nervous, you can ride with me! I’ll make sure nothing happens to you!” 

Gaara didn’t know how to say no to that. And the snickering with which Naruto slapped his back and sent him stumbling in Lee’s direction faded to white noise as he took his seat in front of Lee on the sled. Right between Lee’s spread knees. 

Lee pulled Gaara up against his chest with one strong arm. 

Gaara looked down the slope of the mountain, heart hammering in his chest. He became suddenly, perilously aware of the altitude and how thin it made the air in his lungs. 

“Please don’t worry,” Lee whispered in his ear. “I will protect you. You’re perfectly safe with me.” 

And then with a kick to the back of the sled from Naruto’s heavy snow boot, they went flying down the mountainside. 

Wind whipped past Gaara’s face, chapping his chilled skin. The snow parted on either side of them like waves. The only thing Gaara could hear was Lee’s excited laughter in his ear; the only thing he could feel was Lee’s arm across his midsection, the heat of Lee’s body along his spine even through the thick layers of his outerwear. 

“See?” Lee yelled, jerking the sled back and forth one-handed with the steering rope. “It’s not so bad!” 

Gaara was almost inclined to agree. The swooping in his stomach was alarming but not unpleasant. In fact, it was almost thrilling. 

That was, until they hit the ridge. 

It loomed up out of nowhere, past a cloud bank crackling with an electricity that left the hair on Gaara’s arms standing on end. It was heaped high with powdery snow, so its edge almost blended into the rest of the mountain below, but as they sped closer, Gaara noticed a shadow there.

And the sheer drop where the ridge ended. 

Before he could even think to stop it, they went sailing right over the edge and into thin air. 

Lee whooped into the chill air, dropping the sled’s rope to wrap both arms snug around Gaara’s stomach. 

Then the sled fell out from under them, and at that moment Lee, too, must have noticed something wrong. Quick as a flash, he curled his body around Gaara’s, flipping them in mid-air. Gaara realized with a sick lurch of terror that Lee intended to try to roll the landing, absorbing the shock for both of them with his own body. It was a decision almost certain to end in terrible injury. 

Between the heavy snow and the fact that Lee’s chin was forcing his head to tuck into his chest, Gaara couldn’t see how close the ground was. But he could sense the stone of the mountain beneath the thick layer of snow, and he knew it was approaching fast. 

At the last possible second, he threw down a layer of aerated sand to catch Lee, while Lee caught him. 

They hit the side of the mountain with a simultaneous _oof_ and a shower of sand grains, rolling down the hill a few meters before stopping.

Gaara blinked the snow from his eyes only to see his sand sinking heavily into the slush. Snow, after all, was just cold water, and now his sand was saturated with it. 

To their right, the sled hit the ground and went skidding, riderless, down the mountainside. 

Gaara gave Lee a look that he hoped conveyed how very much he’d expected something terrible like this to happen. Only misery came from playing around with the forces of nature. 

Lee just sat on the ground for a beat, blinking and momentarily dazed. Then he hopped to his feet, shaking the snow from his cloak, and ran to Gaara.

“Are you all right?” He dusted away the miniature snowdrift that had formed on Gaara’s shoulders and pushed a gloved hand through his hair to brush free the ice crystals there. He spun Gaara around once to check him for injury. 

Gaara glanced over his shoulder up the hill, where his sodden sand had left a sizable divot in the snow. 

“I’m fine,” he said. “You?”

“Unharmed, thanks to you and your sand!” 

Thunder crackled overhead. The wind picked up speed, the snow beginning to fall more heavily. 

They both turned to appraise their situation and the sheer cliff face that stood behind them, barring their ascent back to the summit. Even this far down the mountain, the cloud cover was thick, and visibility was poor. 

Gaara held out a hand, and his sand crawled sluggishly towards him, weighed down by the snow and the extant moisture in the air. 

“My sand is worse than useless in this condition,” Gaara said heavily. He eyed Lee. “How’s your climbing?”

Lee stretched out his arms and flexed his fingers. “Pretty good! I used to climb the face of the Hokage Mountain for training. But …” He faltered. “I’ve never tried it with another person holding onto me before. You don’t weigh much, but the sand …” He frowned. “These gloves have terrible grip, but my fingers would go numb if I tried to climb bare-handed. And I don’t have any safety ropes. I could try, but I can’t guarantee it would be safe!” 

Gaara shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest. “Too risky,” he decided. 

The snow began to fall so thickly that Gaara could hardly make out Lee’s face a few feet in front of him. The wind whipped wickedly.

“We need to find shelter,” he said. “The storm’s getting worse. I’m sure our teams will come looking for us when they discover the empty sled.” 

Lee nodded once, his eyes already scanning the surrounding area. 

It was long, torturous work, searching for cover. They had to travel slowly so that Gaara’s sand could keep up with them, and battling the wind slowed their progress further. By the time Lee found the crevice in the rock wall, they were both breathing hard—Gaara moreso than Lee, naturally. Gaara would have thought it too cold to perspire, but a chill sweat had broken out on the back of his neck from the exertion. 

And now, here they are. Trapped by the howling blizzard, wedged into a dark, claustrophobic space. 

Sweat crawls down Gaara’s spine, leaving his skin clammy. He shivers again. 

“Are you cold?” Lee asks him.

It’s too dark for human eyes to see much, but Gaara hopes that Lee can feel the judgment radiating off his expression at that particular inquiry. 

Gaara tugs his cloak a bit more tightly around himself, shuffling his feet to try to generate some ambient warmth. His cloak is designed for chill desert nights, so it’s not much more than thick waxed canvas, meant to keep off the rain of the wet season’s unpredictable storms and stave off dry winds. It’s extremely poorly suited to the current conditions. 

Lee, meanwhile, seems decently insulated, although still chilly. His shivers are only occasional and sporadic, not the full-body shudders racking Gaara. The Konoha winter cloaks are heavy, woolen things with fur-lined collars, and of course Lee’s also wearing a hat and gloves, conveniences Gaara neglected in his foolhardy thinking that this would be a short, recreational jaunt. 

“I can help with that,” Lee offers brightly. 

Gaara’s night vision doesn’t see color well, but he notices the skin on Lee’s cheeks darkening. 

“It would probably be more economical for us to, um, share body heat,” Lee continues. “We don’t know how long the storm will last, or how long it will take our friends to find us.” 

Gaara stares blankly at the few feet of space between them. He can practically _feel_ the heat radiating off Lee’s body. The little pom-poms on Lee’s hat bounce as he gestures encouragingly, opening his cloak. 

Gaara hesitates. His teeth chatter.

“Now don’t be stubborn,” Lee chides him.

Gaara almost refuses, just to prove that Lee can’t tell him what to do. After all, he listened to Lee last time, and look where that got the both of them. 

Outside on the mountain, the wind moans. The snow has started forming a small drift at the bottom of the aperture. Too long in here, and they’ll be blocked in entirely by snow, completely invisible to the world in white-out. 

Gaara inhales sharply. Well. If he’s going to die on the mountainside, he might as well get a hug out of it. 

He steps forward.

“That’s the spirit!” Lee cheers, gathering Gaara into his arms. 

His heavy cloak closes over the both of them, thick arms tight around Gaara’s shoulders. Gaara tries to keep himself very still, not taking more than what he’s been offered. Lee smells like the wood smoke from the fires that burn high in every Lightning Country hearth in winter. Gaara makes sure to only touch him where it’s safe: his forehead pressed to Lee’s broad clavicle, his shoulders held in place by Lee’s muscular arms. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, scared to touch, so he just wraps them tighter around his own chest. 

The warmth of Lee is unbelievable. Gaara’s eyes slip closed despite himself. He thinks he can hear Lee’s heart beating. Or maybe it’s just his own pulse, thundering in his ears. 

There’s a moment of shuffling movement, and then one of Lee’s hands sneaks up inside the cloak now wrapped around both of them to tug his hat onto Gaara’s head. 

“Your head will get cold,” Gaara says sharply, though the hat has already started doing its job, trapping the heat close around his ears. 

“I’ll be fine,” Lee murmurs, and Gaara feels the words vibrating in his chest more than he truly hears them over the blizzard outside. “We get snow in Konoha. Nothing like this, but I’m much more used to the cold than you are.” 

He ducks down, and Gaara feels the point of Lee’s chin through the wool of the hat, pressed up against the top of his head. 

“You should really take better care of yourself,” Lee says. “Suna can’t afford to lose their Kazekage to frostbite.”

“I wasn’t expecting to be out here so long,” Gaara mutters irritably. 

“A shinobi should always be prepared for the worst-case scenario!” Lee recites. The tone of his voice is dutifully angelic, if not a little smug. 

Gaara shuffles backwards a half-step, stricken. “Is that what this is?”

“Well.” Lee glances around and chuckles nervously. “Being lost in a blizzard isn’t so great, but at least the company is good!” 

Seeming to notice the distance Gaara has begun to put between them, Lee braces his arms suddenly. 

“Come on now,” he scolds. “This is no time to be shy. You’re letting half the warm out standing that far away.” 

He drops his gloved hands to the small of Gaara’s back and tugs, pulling Gaara in close. The movement is sudden enough that it startles Gaara into unfolding his arms, stumbling forward and only barely catching himself on Lee’s broad shoulders. Lee arranges them until they’re pressed against one another completely, front-to-front. 

Gaara tries not to inhale, terribly aware of how the tide of their breathing makes their chests and stomachs brush as Lee carefully tugs the cloak close around them once more. One of Lee’s hands slides up Gaara’s back to his shoulder and back down again, all firm pressure. This close, Lee smells of more than smoke. Gaara can smell the balm under his bandages, the morning’s warm tea on his breath. The blood just underneath the skin of his throat. 

Lee’s jacket is heavy and lined, but beneath it Gaara can still feel the planes of firm muscle, how they shift with his breath. The pace of Lee’s breathing is just slightly off, not quite regular. In the sparse light, Gaara can see the hammering of his pulse in the column of his throat. 

A tendril of wind sneaks into the crevice, chilling Gaara’s nose. He turns and tucks his face against Lee’s bare skin, in the little gap between his scarf and jacket collar. 

Lee hisses a sound that might have been intended as a word. 

There’s something of the fantastic about it, the way the last scraps of grey light are blotted out by the sparking clouds, casting them in an ozone-thick layer of privacy. The snow cover deadens every sound until all Gaara can hear is Lee’s breathing, the half-formed sounds he murmurs into Gaara’s hair, never quite complete. Lee is the only spot of warmth in the whole world, and Gaara burrows further into him, sinks into the heat of him and lets his breathing match Lee’s pace, their bodies rising and falling in sync. 

Of course, this means now Gaara has to deal with the consequences of his choices. The whole reason he tried to keep their touching to a minimum in the first place, why he wanted to keep his hips far from Lee’s. Because this embrace mimics something Gaara has spent far too many lonely nights imagining, in the dark of his room with his hand on himself.

And now he can feel himself hardening against Lee’s thigh. 

He shuts his eyes tight against Lee’s warm skin. He needs to distract himself, but Lee’s presence overwhelms him as it always does, kicks the logic right out of his head and clears a space that’s devoted only to _Lee_. Gaara tries to think of boring things: council meetings, signing treaties in his office, the watering schedule of the plants in his greenhouse. 

His traitorous mind supplies him with an image of Lee with his head between Gaara’s thighs beneath the council table, Gaara straddling Lee’s lap on his office chair with papers thrown aside, Lee tumbling him onto the sandy floor between the rows of cacti. Lee with his irrepressible, sunshiney warmth, holding him, touching him, laughing into Gaara’s mouth as they kiss. 

Lee’s arm clutches him closer against a particularly fierce howl of wind, and Gaara can’t help the tiny noise that escapes his lips as he’s pressed up against Lee’s muscled hip. His dick throbs in his pants. 

“Um, Gaara-kun?” Lee whispers, his voice wavering and hesitant. He’s shivering, just slightly. Gaara can feel the tremulous vibrations of his limbs. “I can help you with that, too, if you like.” 

Gaara freezes. He tilts his head back to look at Lee’s face, blinking rapidly, _certain_ he misheard. His heart stutters, hard enough that he’s sure Lee can feel it. 

“Um, sorry,” Lee stammers. His face is a shade yet darker than before, his impossibly long eyelashes fluttering. There are a few flakes of snow caught there, yet to melt. “I just thought—Forget I said anything. I completely understand. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything! Gai-sensei says that it’s perfectly natural to, um, have that sort of reaction in situations of closeness or risk, even if there are no underlying feelings. It is just a part of the experience of youth, and I didn’t mean to insinuate that—”

“Lee,” Gaara hisses, turning his head back against Lee’s neck, inhaling deep at the smoke-and-medicine scent of him. “Stop yammering about your teacher and _touch me_.” 

“Right!” Lee practically yelps. He fumbles behind Gaara’s back. There’s a shuff of fabric as one of his gloves falls to the ground, then the skin-on-skin sound of him rubbing his bare hands together. 

The cloak tightens slightly around them as Lee twists it in one hand, his other, now-free hand worming its way up into the scant space between them. 

He blows on his palm to warm it. His breath smells like crushed mint tea and body heat, the gust of air from his mouth warm and wet on the cold skin of Gaara’s face. 

Gaara doesn’t know if Lee is aware that he can see in the dark of the little cavern. Lee’s hands were apparently bare beneath the gloves, bandages removed to who-knows-where. The skin of his knuckles is silvery with scar tissue, and it’s not even his bad left hand, the one Gaara crushed. 

Something sick and guilty turns over in Gaara’s stomach, but then Lee’s long fingers are slipping between the waxy layers of his cloak, up and under the hem of Gaara’s jacket and shirt to the skin beneath, and every iota of shame flees his body. 

Despite the friction and breath, Lee’s fingers are still cool. Gaara hisses at the touch, the muscles of his stomach jumping. 

Lee pauses. “Is this all right?” he whispers. 

Gaara nods hurriedly against his shoulder. There’s too much fabric in the way for him to see what Lee’s doing properly, but he can just barely discern the faint, shadowy lump of Lee’s hand moving beneath his clothes. Lee’s response is immediate, fingers trailing down Gaara’s abdomen to the drawstring of his pants, his fingers quick and clever in untying it. 

The skin of Lee’s palm warms fast on Gaara’s skin. Understandably so, because all the blood in Gaara’s body feels like it’s rushed to that singular place. The echo of his pulse throbs in his dick, his whole body straining towards Lee’s hand. 

And then Lee finally cups his hand around Gaara and strokes. All the breath leaves Gaara’s lungs, sudden as a punch to the diaphragm. 

Lee’s hand is big enough to cover all of Gaara at once, and the thought makes Gaara dizzy. Lee tugs on him once, twice, the rhythm quick but even. 

It feels so much better than Gaara’s own hand on himself, than those lonely nights with just his imagination and a pillow roughly shoved into the shape of another body to accompany him. Lee is so _warm_ , and even with the steady pace of his hand, Gaara cannot quite predict where or how he’ll touch next. Each stroke of Lee’s hand is a revelation. 

When Lee twists up and over the head of Gaara’s cock, pushing the foreskin back on the downstroke, Gaara’s head throws itself backwards quite out of his control. He bares his throat to the elements. A cold breeze whips through the new space between their upper bodies, and Lee pulls him closer with the arm around his shoulders to close the gap. 

His dick collides with Lee’s clothed hip, and the contrast of the rough fabric and the calloused skin of Lee’s palm knocks a breathless noise from him. His lips are chapped from the cold and he licks them, desperate for more of that heat. The few snowflakes that have crept onto Gaara’s blood-hot skin turn to meltwater. 

Gaara wonders if Lee will try to kiss him. Lee doesn’t. He just bites his own lip, though his wide, dark eyes stay fixed on Gaara’s face, unblinking. Gaara doesn’t think Lee can see him, at least not well, but he’s certainly putting the effort in, his gaze trailing just to the side of Gaara’s mouth. 

Lee twists his wrist again, and when Gaara grunts in pleasure he repeats the motion. A genius of the physical, that’s what Lee has always been. A quick and avid learner, hell-bent on doing every action _just right_. An expert in the body. 

Gaara hopes it’s simply Lee’s natural aptitude working for him now, and that Lee doesn’t do this with every person he ends up wedged into a crevice alongside. He hopes the searching, eager expression on Lee’s face, the way his large pupils dilate to swallow up the faint light at Gaara’s choked-off noise, is for him and him alone. It’s hard to imagine Lee doing this with anyone else—not just painful to picture, but improbable-seeming, too. Gaara may be ill-socialized, but he’s no fool; he’s noticed the way Lee hews a bit closer into his personal space than he does with his other friends, the beat too long he lingers over their hugs when it’s time to say goodbye. After all, Lee didn’t invite anyone _else_ to cram into a tiny sled with him and go skidding down a mountainside.

Gaara chalked most of it up to wishful thinking, before. His own desires coloring his perception. 

But there’s no mistaking the look on Lee’s face right now, teeth denting his plush lower lip, eyes impossibly wide. There’s no other interpretation for the way that, when Lee gathers him even closer, hand moving frantically now, he presses his lips to the edge of Gaara’s forehead and whispers his name. 

Gaara’s balls draw tight against his body. A tide of heat is building at the base of his dick, urged on by Lee’s clever hand. 

Lee jostles him an infinitesimal bit closer, and Gaara loses his balance slightly. His leg slips between Lee’s parted thighs. He is made suddenly, staggeringly aware of the bulge of Lee’s erection in his own pants. 

It’s that—that acknowledgement of mutuality, that responsive groan from between Lee’s lips when Gaara shifts against him—that kicks Gaara right off the precipice.

He comes onto Lee’s jacket with a silent shudder, Lee’s warm, scarred palm working him through it. 

He’s about to grab for the fly of Lee’s own pants when he hears it.

“Lee? Kazekage-sama?” 

They jump apart simultaneously. Lee stares down at the spend on his hand in alarm before hastily wiping it on the inside of his cloak. He draws the heavy fabric tight around himself as Gaara fumbles his softening dick back into his pants and sticks his head out of the crack in the rock wall.

Trekking across the mountainside, heavily bundled in their colorful winter wear, are Lee’s teammates.

“There you are!” Tenten’s face splits into a grin and she waves frantically. “Neji said you were around here somewhere!” 

Gaara can feel the crackle of chakra from a recent kekkei genkai, but Neji’s byakugan is suspiciously deactivated. Moreover, he refuses to meet Gaara’s eye as he and Lee clamber out of the crevice and begin the arduous climb back up the mountain. 

It isn’t until they make it back to the Raikage Tower that Gaara realizes he’s still wearing Lee’s hat.

* * *

Lee flops backwards onto the thin mattress of his bed in the guard suite. Neji and Tenten are still enjoying post-dinner drinks with the Hokage, and the moment of alone time has given him a chance to reflect.

He runs his hand down his face, grateful for the stinging response of the nerve endings in his nose, his ears, his fingertips. He wiggles his toes and feels them scrape against his thick woolen socks. He’s lucky all his appendages are intact; one bad bout of frostbite can disable a shinobi for life. One of his gloves is still somewhere midway down the mountainside, abandoned in that crevice. 

He’s still half-convinced the moment in the rock face was nothing more than a delusion brought on by the blizzard. The way you can see shapes in the snow that aren’t there, just like a mirage forms in the desert. Desperation manifested as a sensory experience. 

But he can’t stop feeling the warmth of Gaara’s skin, the way he throbbed and pulsed in Lee’s hands. He cannot get the echo of Gaara’s gasps and groans out of his ears. 

He really should not have done that. It was foolish of him to even have said anything, when he noticed Gaara hard against his hip. His mouth moved before he could stop it.

And of course, he certainly didn’t expect Gaara to say _yes_. 

They didn’t talk about it enough beforehand ( _or at all,_ scolds the voice in Lee’s head that upbraids him when he fails a self-rule). But Gaara’s skin was so _hot_ , and the sounds he made were so _needy_. How could Lee have resisted, when it was something he’d been thinking about—dreaming about, wildly fantasizing about—for months, if not years? The formidable Kazekage, falling apart in Lee’s scarred hands. But more than that, his friend— _Gaara_ —with all his harsh edges worn away and soft side exposed, writhing in Lee’s grasp, whispering Lee’s name. 

Lee throws himself back against the pillows with a groan, pressing his (terrible, wicked) hands over his eyes and trying to will the stirring that’s arisen in his pants at the memory to abate.

Someone is knocking on the door. 

Lee jumps to his feet, quickly checking himself over for any signs of where his mind was just wandering. He pulls the hem of his sweater down to make sure it fully covers his crotch.

Perhaps room service has gotten lost on the way to Naruto’s room again, or Neji or Tenten have forgotten their room key. He runs his hand quickly through his hair and shakes it out to ensure he’s presentable before he cracks the door.

Standing in the hallway outside his room is Gaara. 

“Ah, Gaara-kun!” Lee opens the door fully. Has he come to return Lee’s hat, perhaps? “Would you like to come in?” 

Gaara is already past the threshold, ducking under Lee’s arm and into the room before Lee can get the sentence fully out of his mouth. He pushes the door closed behind him with the toe of his thick, fluffy slippers. Other than the slippers, the only other thing he’s wearing is a plush bathrobe. It doesn’t look like it has pockets, no place to conceal Lee’s loaned winter wear. Of course, Gaara may keep Lee’s hat if he likes. He may have anything of Lee’s that he wants, if he should only ask for it. 

The skin of Gaara’s cheeks is pink and wind-chapped. Lee wonders if he has lotion; his skin will crack terribly if he doesn’t take care of that.

Gaara glances around Lee’s room briefly, the expression in his eyes unreadable. The room’s furnishings are modest: three twin beds, a set of bedside tables, a wooden chair and writing desk. Lee and his teammates’ bags are stacked against the wall, but some of their items have spilled out onto the floor in typical inn-living fashion. Lee is suddenly embarrassed not to have tidied up more. Tenten did not even make her bed this morning. 

Gaara crosses his arms over his chest. The skin in the gap where the two halves of his bathrobe’s front overlap is pale and pink, lightly freckled and scattered with fine red hair. Lee endeavors fruitlessly not to look at it nor commit it to memory. 

“My room has a hot tub,” Gaara says after a beat. 

Ah, the privileges of being Kazekage! All the Kage have been given fine accommodations indeed. The Raikage is most generous. 

“That is wonderful!” Lee enthuses. 

Gaara thins his lips. “Yes.” There’s a beat of silence, then, “You were cold before.” 

“Oh!” Lee straightens. Of course, Gaara has just come to make sure he’s suffered no ill effects from their earlier misadventure. “You don’t need to worry about me! There’s an incredible fireplace in the lobby, and as I’m sure you can feel, it’s quite warm in here! Plus, I have this very thick sweater and socks!” Lee pulls the hem of his sweater and holds it out in illustration, so the pattern across the front can be better seen. The front of the sweater has a bright pink lotus on it, and beneath it says **YOUTH!** “Gai-sensei knitted it for me.” 

Gaara’s eyes linger on the hem of the sweater for a long moment. Lee realizes belatedly that he has yet to put his bandages back on, and that the ugly scars on his hands are showing. 

He quickly pulls his hands up into his sleeves. 

“My _room_ has a _hot tub_ ,” Gaara repeats, carefully enunciating every other word.

“Um, yes.” Lee laughs awkwardly. “You mentioned. It sounds lovely!” 

Gaara’s eyes snap to Lee’s face. 

“You could come warm up in it. With me,” he adds, and then, as if concerned Lee might still be confused, “Together.” 

Lee’s eyes grow huge. 

“Ah, Gaara-kun, are you sure that is something you want to—?” His throat works. 

Gaara nods meaningfully in the direction of the front of Lee’s pants, which Lee has just now noticed that the fumbling with his sweater has exposed. 

“You helped me earlier,” Gaara says, meaning heavy in the words. “I thought I could return the favor.”

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, [GaaLee Bingo](https://gaalee-bingo.tumblr.com) is still open for prompt submissions through September 30th! There are still more prompts needed to make this event a success. Please go submit bingo prompts and consider participating when the cards are posted in October!


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